Reflecting on a long 13 hour day at the British Junior Championships for our 14 relatively inexperience archers and the 20+ supporting parents and coaches has left an overriding feeling that as a club we are keeping things just about right!
Some of the senior support team taking time to think!
As I looked around our team, all sat together waiting for the results and knowing that 7 had won medals, it was impossible to detect who were the lucky ones, everyone was smiling and sharing stories from a great day, not just the archers but the parents and coaches. Many of those that had not won medals on this occasion had recorded personal best scores, most were pleased with the way they shot and the new friends they had met and that despite a gloomy forecast the weather had been very kind to us.
Perfect conditions for a good score.
A feeding/watering point had been set up by some of our team ensuring an ample supply of bacon butties, egg baps, tea and drizzle cake throughout the day for the support team, our archers were of course on a more balanced diet!
With Tom, James and Lucy away representing GB in Moscow and a number of senior members not available this was certainly a very inexperienced team. This was certainly not reflected in a great set of individual results, and topped with Gloucestershire winning the Mixed County Compound team comprising Connie Healey, Alfie Wilkes and Holly Clifford. Connie also picked up the trophy for the highest unrewarded score!
Alfie Wilkes repeated his indoor championship success by comfortably winning gold in the B3 Junior Gents Compound with a score of 1280.
Nicole Deasy retained her B4 Barbow title with a score of 1062 just 2 points ahead of fellow Deer Park Archer, Rachael Lucas who put in one of the performances of the day in her first big competition! Both archers were way ahead of the rest of the competitors and still have another year at this distance!
There were also silver medals for Chloe A’Bear, Mike Dalton and Hamish Ponton. Phoebe Pine a member of the Paralympic Junior Development Squad also shot on the Saturday and picked up Bronze Medals on both days and is demonstrating a massive improvement in performance and would certainly be one of the performers of the weekend!
Josh Uzzel improved his personal best score by over 150 points and Riley Spencer-Nice showed a massive improvement in score whilst shooting his first big Recurve Tournament having previously shot Barebow.
Josh, recorded a PB by over 150 points!
We do need to take the opportunity to thank Archery GB for another well run competition.
Next Saturday we have 20 juniors competing in the Regional Championship, let’s hope for another enjoyable day
